Teaching dance classes with books is one of my favorite pastimes.  I love how a story can motivate movement in children!  The Rainbow Fish is a fun story for 3-8 year olds, and I always end this lesson talking about how we can share our dancing with others.  Here’s the lesson:

1. Show pictures of several sea creatures and talk about how they might move (for the printable visuals, click here)

.

• Fish: Wiggle your head

• Octopus: Wiggle your arms and legs

• Crab/Lobster: Tiny and sharp steps

• Sea Turtle: Slow, sustained/smooth movement

2. Turn on music and guide the children through an improvisation of how these sea creatures move.

3. Read aloud Marcus Pfister’s The Rainbow Fish.  Whenever the book says the word “fish” all the children must wiggle their head like a fish.  Rainbow fish learns that he can make the other fish in the sea happy by sharing his scales.  What can you share that makes other people happy?

4. We all have bodies to dance with and we are going to create a dance that we can share with our teacher, and if you remember, you can share it with your mom or dad when you get home.  Assign the children into two groups: either one’s or two’s.  All of the one’s go out into the space and make a sea animal shape (any frozen shape will do).   All the two’s, when I say go, dance into the space quick and sharp like a crab and then make a different sea animal shape.  Alternate one’s and two’s using the various sea animals we learned.

5. Place several mats around the room.  These will represent the islands in the sea.  When I turn on the music, everyone will dance around the room without touching the mats, wiggling your arms and legs like an octopus.  When the music stops, you must freeze in an octopus shape and be touching a mat. (Repeat with other sea animals).  More than one child may touch a mat.  As you repeat, the instructor can be the “evil eel” and take away two or three mats each time until there are only a few left.

6. Have children do a Good-bye dance.  Line up on one end of the space and, while playing music, have each child one by one dance across the room, practicing what they can share with their parents about how sea animals move.

And if you’ve got extra time, enjoy these printable Rainbow Fish coloring pages!